Nats Give Away Memorial NFT of Ryan Zimmerman’s Retirement Life!
My actual NFT
If you have not heard, the Washington Nationals gave away commemorative non-fungible tokens (NFTs) during Ryan Zimmerman’s retirement. Ryan Zimmerman, also known as Mr. National and Mr. Walk-Off, was part of the Nats since their first season in 2005 and played throughout the 2021 season, all as a Washington Nationals player. Along the way, he achieved many outstanding achievements, including the Gold Glove Award, the Silver Slugger Award and the 2019 World Series Championship Ring.
To celebrate its fantastic baseball career as one of the best players to ever play for the Nats, the organization gave away custom NFTs to each ticket buyer who participated in that retirement game against the Philadelphia Phillies. The NFTs included the participant’s section and seat number to make the digital memory special. A kind of “where were you” at that moment in National’s history. The stadium was sold out with a turnout of 42,730.
Other digital assets
As part of a Major League Baseball (MLB) deal, the league recently teamed up with NFT company Candy Digital to produce unique NFT editions that fans can bid on. If a fan owns an NFT, they can get special benefits from games like throwing the first court or receiving a personal Nats jersey.
Nats is also looking at allowing a form of cryptocurrency to be used to make purchases at the stadium. The team has partnered with Terra to use its UST stablecoin, which puts the Washington Nationals into the realm of crypto-friendly sports stadiums. But they are not the first sports team to do so, as the Dallas Mavericks basketball team accepts the cryptocurrency DOGE and the Sacramento Kings accepted Bitcoin in 2014.
Possible fan tokens
With Nats’ background in digital assets, their fans will also be keeping an eye on fan tokens this year, which are likely to go to baseball. MLB executives have admitted that they are looking at fan tokens, which have become popular all over the world. Fan tokens are digital assets, similar to crypto, but instead of using them to buy or exchange, they give the owner exclusive access to VIP events, rewards and special privileges – as an exclusive community of the most dedicated fans . Perhaps the most famous are Socio’s fan tokens, which have become popular in football. Socios has already partnered with the NBA, NHL, NFL and MLS, leaving MLB as the last frontier to be explored.
So if people are Nats fanatics, they can show their support by buying fan tokens in the future. To buy fan tokens, they would use Socios.com’s in-app currency called Chiliz ($ CHZ) to switch to fan tokens on the Socios platform. In return for owning these digital collectibles, they can get voting rights on certain things like choosing the introductory song to the warm-up or choosing the training playlist, among other things. The ultimate purpose is to transfer power to the fans by increasing the engagement with their favorite teams.
For now, Nats fans can look forward to future falls similar to the Zimmerman NFT release that will be centered around their favorite players. After 16 fantastic seasons, Ryan Zimmerman and the Washington Nationals have officially put on jersey number eleven.
So if you want to be a part of the future of MLB and sports, be sure to pick up special commemorative NFTs every time nations celebrate historic moments, as they may well be this generation’s new form of playing cards.
